She was in front of him, standing on the other side of the console, her head and shoulders visible above the monitor, the rest of her body hidden from his view. He didn’t glance up from the screen. Instead, with quiet pressure from his left index finger, he pressed the number 2.

ENTER INTERLOCK PROGRAM

A message flashed onto the screen: WARNING! INTERPHASE USER TIME NOW UP. INFORMING CONTROL OF THIS TRANSACTION. PRESS RETURN TO CONTINUE. YOU ARE NOW BEING MONITORED BY CONTROL.

Monitored by control: that meant someone would now be watching his every move, ready to negate it if they could. (Harry in front of him! Don’t think about her!) He had to finish this quickly, but without allowing them to work out just what he was up to. (Harry standing right there, a rustling of plastic. The carrier bag.) It wouldn’t be easy.

‘Hello, Martin,’ she said again. ‘Bring your hands where I can see them.’ And this time he did look up. He couldn’t help himself. He gazed towards her dark glassy eyes. And found himself staring down the barrel of a gun, so close that he could swear he could see the bullet resting at the end of the long, long chamber.

Then the gun seemed to speak. ‘Goodbye, Martin.’

38

‘What the hell is this?’

Villiers had ushered Dreyfuss into a series of rooms, separated by glass wall dividers. The rooms were packed with electronics Dreyfuss didn’t – couldn’t – recognise. It wasn’t like in the old movies he’d seen, banks of flashing lights and huge rolls of tape rotating on their mainframe computer spools. It wasn’t even like Argos mission control. It was cool and peaceful, and the machines made a low, soothing sound, while six dot matrix printers disgorged their data and a row of six television monitors showed a mixture of satellite pictures and computer graphics. DAT machines recorded without apparent end the digital transmissions from … well, wherever. Telemetry? Satellite waves? Computer language? Dreyfuss thought all three were possible. COFFIN seemed to have limitless access and limitless funds. But then COFFIN was potentially the largest army the world had ever seen.

And in a corner of this most impressive of the rooms sat Jilly.

Surrounded by state-of-the-art hardware, her captors had chosen a good old-fashioned method of securing her: rope bands looping around her body and the chair-back, and around her wrists; an adhesive gag for her mouth. Except that on closer inspection, Dreyfuss saw that the bands were made of thin plastic strips, secured by metal clips. Unbreakable, and painful to fight and chafe against. He ran to the chair and placed his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes were wild with surprise at seeing him, and she tried to speak, mouthing her frustration against the restraining pad.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked awkwardly, no other more sensible words coming to mind. She nodded briskly.